CSPI and Consumer Federation of America appreciate the opportunity to submit comments to the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) on its advanced notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPR) involving questions about how meat and poultry products comprised of, or containing, cultured meat and poultry cells should be labeled.
In response to FDA's request for information on the labeling of (future) food products derived from cell-cultured seafood, CSPI submitted this comment on March 8, 2021.
In CSPI's view, when cell-cultured seafood products are ready for their food safety assessment at FDA, the agency, with stakeholder input, should identify material differences from traditional products and then make consumers aware of those differences on the product label. The comment lays out several potential material differences that would be of interest to consumers.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has finally completed the regulations for disclosure of bioengineered food ingredients required by the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Law. CSPI generally supports the final rule because it finally gives the information to consumers in a uniform manner. However, the rule is complex and much education of consumers will be needed before consumers will understand the newly disclosed information.
It’s daunting to think about the damage we’re doing to our planet, and the harm it will do to our own health.
But as our interview with Harvard’s Sam Myers (see "There is No Planet B") shows, solutions do exist. Some, like reducing carbon emissions from vehicles and power plants, are well known; others are less recognized. For example, livestock accounted for an estimated 15 percent of human-induced worldwide greenhouse gas emissions in 2005.
